


Bruises Look Like Darkened Blood in the Moonlight

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [37]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: M/M, Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, implied rape, talk of past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 11:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16491608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Dallas comes home to his place at Buck's to find Johnny asleep in his bed. Things escalate from there.





	Bruises Look Like Darkened Blood in the Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Raw](https://archiveofourown.org/works/236724) by [Jane St Clair (3jane)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair). 



> i ain't remixed a fic in a while and i recently reread raw and knew that i had to. i might make this longer in the future, but we'll see. the only difference between my fic and this one is i took out the smut cause i just don't write smut.

Dallas hadn’t been to the racetrack in weeks. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been there before tonight, but he knew it had been a good long while. In fact, the last time he could vividly remember being there had been when Soda still had Mickey and...that was at least a year or two ago now. He wasn’t sure what had made him stop going to the track, trying to earn money in the only honest way he knew how, but he had an idea. That idea was waiting for him when he finally got back to his room at Buck’s, fast asleep on the bed pressed up against the far wall, making soft whimpering moans in his sleep, looking more like a small, dark child than a sixteen year old boy.

Johnny had been coming to Buck’s more and more to see him. Or just sleep in his bed when it was too cold to spend the night in the lot or too dangerous to stay home. As Dallas approached him, he realized tonight it was the latter. The side of his face that wasn’t invisible, pressed up against the pillow, was a dark purple, visibly darker than the rest of his deep brown skin. Even though he was asleep, Dallas could tell that his eye was nearly swollen shut from the bruise. Anger filled him in an instant as he stared at it.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.

The whole gang knew what Johnny’s parents were like. Especially his father. Especially when he’d had a few too many shots of tequila...or whatever his drink of choice was that night. tequila just seemed to make him the angriest, seemed to make him want to hurt Johnny more than he usually did.

Johnny’s hair, black as midnight and longer than most boys’, was spread across the pillow. Without thinking about it, Dallas reached out, touching the silky strands. They were so glossy the light from the moon, shining in through the window, caught them. He rubbed the strands between his fingers, smiling slightly before he realized what he was doing and snatched his hand back in an instant.

He turned on his heel, walking quickly from the bedside to the bathroom, turning the shower on full blast, making it as hot as he could stand before throwing off his clothes as though they were offensive and stepping under the spray, letting the hotness burn his skin and burn away the thoughts that were circling in his mind, the thoughts of Johnny kissing him, touching him, smiling at him in a way that boys were not supposed to smile at each other.

Dallas Winston had been in love with Johnny Cade for years now. Four years to be exact. Ever since he’d come back from New York. He’d tried to cut it away, burn it away, fuck it away, but nothing helped. Nothing made him come to his senses and realize with a jolt that he didn’t love Johnny Cade. Not even the thought that the odds of Johnny loving him back were close to zero. He’d have a better chance of flying to Mexico than of having Johnny love him back. Or of even accepting him if he somehow found out that Dallas liked boys as much as he liked girls.

He stayed in the shower until his skin was red and he could hardly breathe from the thick steam that choked the cool air in the bathroom. Then he finally shut off the shower, watching the excess water drip from the shower head for a moment before he finally stepped out and toweled himself off. When he was dry enough, he pulled on his boxers and then his jeans. He grabbed his t-shirt, but left it off as he walked back into the bedroom, a cloud of steam following in his wake, the fog on the mirror beginning to dissipate as he opened the door.

His eyes immediately went back to Johnny, back to the dark bruise on his face. Were it any other time of day, he’d go steal a bottle of vodka from the bar downstairs and wander around town, looking for a fight, until he forgot what Johnny’s damaged face looked like, forgot he could do fuck all about it too, until he was so bruised himself he looked like he’d taken the beating Johnny had.

And maybe that was his fantasy.

To come into the Cade house just in time, step in front of Johnny as his father was throwing a punch, get the bruised face instead. Because god knew that Johnny didn’t deserve it. Out of all of the gang, Johnny deserved this the least.

The whole of Tulsa was a dark pit of violence, sadness, and anger. Johnny was the only bright light shining in all that darkness and, staring at him again, still asleep on the bed, Dallas could tell without having to look into his closed eyes that the light was slowly being put out. There was only so much that a person could take before they broke. And Johnny was breaking.

He still wanted to go out and drink. Wanted to leave the room right now, go downstairs, take that bottle of vodka with or without Buck’s blessing and leave the bar to stagger around town for a while, until he could forget every single one of the dark thoughts in his mind. But it was past eleven. Almost midnight. Surely the men who kept asking him for a blowjob in exchange for a little cash would be out by now. They always came out when it got dark and...while Dallas could fight them off, Johnny was less than half his size. He wouldn’t be able to.

He shuddered, closing his eyes briefly at the thought.

Had Johnny had to fight his way through them to get into the bar?

He didn’t think so. They would be having a very different kind of interaction if he had. That much he knew. He’d seen Johnny before, broken and bloody from what the Socs had done to him three times now, what his father did to him too, late at night when there was no one there to stop him. He’d seen him in the shower as the blood washed away down the drain, a shower that looked far too much like something he’d seen when he was in jail. Johnny was only wearing a pair of boxers and a t-shirt now. He was shaking and whimpering in his sleep still, but Dallas had seen Johnny so many times after he’d been violated...he knew the signs by now.

Reaching out again, putting his hand in his hair, Dally said quietly, “Johnnycake. Wake up.”

As though roused from a trance, Johnny’s eyelids fluttered open immediately. It seemed to take him a moment to realize where he was. Then he turned on his back to look up at Dallas. Dally expected him to tell him to take his hand out of his hair, but he didn’t. He just stared up at him, looking even more lost and broken than he had in sleep.

“Dallas...” he finally said quietly, his brain finally catching up with his tired eyes.

“Yeah,” Dally replied, snatching his hand away once more. “Who’d you think it was?”

Johnny closed his mouth and swallowed. He didn’t answer that question.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Dally asked, trying to remain stoic and uncaring, knowing that if Johnny only looked hard enough every emotion he was truly feeling would be seen behind his eyes.

Johnny looked away. “I’m sorry.”

His voice was quiet. Barely more than a whisper. Something about the way he spoke made the anger surge up in Dallas anew. He wanted to kill whoever had made him feel he had to apologize for taking up space, for simply existing.

 _You’re the only good thing in this wretched world, Johnnycake,_ he wanted to say.

But he didn’t. Dallas Winston didn’t say things like that. Not to anyone. Not even Johnny.

“Hey, none of that,” he said instead. “Tell me what happened.”

Which was basically the same thing to anyone who was listening, to anyone who really knew him. But no one did. He’d made sure of that. Damn sure.

Johnny swallowed hard, still not looking at Dallas. “My old man. He got mad. Had too much tequila. I came home too late or somethin’. I don’t really remember.”

 _Tequila,_ Dally thought. _Of course. I was right._

He nodded once. “Why you here insteada at the Curtis’s?”

Johnny shrugged, his eyes still on the back wall of the room. “Went the wrong way.”

Dally wasn’t sure why, he never really would be, but that made a lump form in his throat and a deep sadness settle into him, so deep it hit his bones and made him shake. The only way he could keep Johnny from seeing it was by sitting down next to him, hooking his arm around Johnny’s neck and pulling his bruised face against his chest, something between a hug and headlock as he hissed out in a broken whisper, “Johnny...”

Distantly, Dallas realized he must be hurting Johnny, but he couldn’t stop and Johnny, the boy who hates to be touched, just took it, the only indication it might be uncomfortable for him the way he leaned in a pulled Dally’s arm down slightly so he didn’t choke.

When Dally finally pulled away, he sat up, leaning against Dallas as he shook bad enough to make Dallas think for a moment he’s just shivering, while taking deep shuddering breaths. He doesn’t cry. Despite everything, Johnny Cade never cries. Not often anyway. And not in front of anyone. Dally’s seen him cry a few times, but he doesn’t think anyone else has.

Greasers don’t cry. Not ever. No matter what.

But Johnny Cade is different. Everyone knows that.

They all think their lives are some version of hell. Everyone just agrees Johnny’s is actual hell.

Not that he would tell anyone else anyway even if that weren’t the case.

It’s the shaking that startled him, though he knew it shouldn’t. Johnny always shakes. He’ll still be shaking when he’s old, when all of this is a distant memory and his dark, smooth skin has become wrinkled and his black hair has gone gray.

 _If he even makes it that long,_ a cruel voice in his head reminded him.

He hated that he couldn’t even argue with it.

Greasers have a high mortality rate. Especially greasers with lives like Johnny’s.

Out of nowhere, Dallas remembered the night the gang found him in the lot, looking dead, covered in his own blood, looking like he’d been hit with a ton of concrete several times over. He remembers how they took him back to the Curtis’s place, how the gang had stood around in the living room, feeling hopeless, helpless, until Dallas had pulled Johnny off the couch by the waist and to the bathroom. He’d set him on the toilet, though Johnny could barely sit up without toppling over and taped up the cut on his face. The Curtis’s didn’t have a needle and thread and Dally is still sure that’s why it scarred so bad.

They never talked about what happened afterwards. Never discussed how Johnny had laid curled on the floor of the shower, rocking back and forth, hunched over, shaking, as the blood that had covered his body, the blood from between his legs, had washed off and swirled down the drain. They never talked about how Johnny never once closed the curtain during this shower nor how Dallas had sat on the toilet, one hand over his mouth, shuddering as he choked down each sob that rose in his chest, unable to stop thinking that this was his fault, unable to stop remembering jail, unable to stop knowing what had happened to Johnny though he’d never spoken a word about it.

Dally’d had to help Johnny dress after that. After he’d helped him out of the shower, after he was in there so long the water had started to turn cold and he was shaking from fear and chills and Dally had to pull him out of it, so he didn’t end up with pneumonia on top everything else. He’d dressed him in one of Darry’s too-big t-shirts, half wishing it were one of his own instead.

No one mentioned later the way he’d slept on the floor by the couch Johnny had slept on that night. Not even Two-Bit, who turns everything that isn’t funny into a joke.

After that, Johnny let Dallas touch him more. Only him. Johnny still flinches when Dally touches him and he doesn’t see it coming, still jumps when Dallas puts a hand on his thigh or the small of his back. But despite that it’s still more than he lets the rest of the gang do.

It’s always Dallas he runs to when he’s limping from broken ribs or his back begins to act up. It’s always Dally’s bed he sleeps in after his father assaults him or touches him. Dally still remembers with awful, vivid clarity the night he’d driven him to the emergency room after his temperature hit a hundred and his ribs still hadn’t healed. He can still see the look on the faces of the doctors as he helped him into the hospital, thinking that maybe they thought he’d been the one to do this to him.

If he hadn’t been so horrifically sick with worry, he might’ve laughed at the thought.

Dally hurt people. He enjoyed doing it. But Johnny Cade was different.

Everyone who knew him knew that.

Even Johnny, who doesn’t trust a single soul, knows that.

Enough to even now let Dallas peel off his shirt.

Dally tried not to gasp in horror as he saw the bruises that covered Johnny’s torso. There were the ones from the broken ribs a week ago, but there were new ones too, darker ones that went with the black eye his father had given him. Johnny dropped his head against Dally’s chest, looking for all the world as though he had fallen asleep again right then and there against him. Dally ran his hand up and down Johnny’s back, feeling for the hot spots the bruises left, rubbing them out with his fingers.

Without thinking about it, Dallas rocked him back and forth, humming a tune his mother would hum to him when she was still alive. The only thing he could think is that Johnny will always be the kid, the pet, everyone’s kid brother. Even when he’s old and gray and covered in more scars than he is now. He distantly felt the slickness of Johnny’s greasy hair against his cheek and, still not thinking about it, kissed the top of his head, convincing himself that it’s just a friendly gesture, that there’s nothing more behind it and he didn’t want anything more from it either.

As though to make up for the tenderness, he was more rough with him as he pushed him down onto his stomach, straddling his waist to rub his back, trying to make the pain less, trying to make the bruises go away more quickly. But Johnny’s skinny body was tense no matter what he did. Dally couldn’t think of a time he’s ever been relaxed. He wondered if he ever would be. As much as he wanted to admit otherwise, he couldn’t ever see it happening. Not now. Not for a long, long time.

Maybe not ever.

But that didn’t matter right now. Right now he just wanted him to relax, just a bit, maybe remember to breathe more deeply instead of in those sharp gasps. He couldn’t fix Johnny, he knew that. But he could make things easier. At least, he hoped he could.

But nothing helped. Johnny was still tense, still flinched every time Dally lifted his hands from his skin and set them back down. Finally, Dallas gave up and flopped down on the space of bed between Johnny and the wall. He propped his head up with one arm and watched Johnny for a moment, watched him shake and clutch at the sheets around him.

“What’s wrong, Johnnycake?” he asked, his voice soft, not wanting to startle him.

Johnny didn’t reply. Dally didn’t really expect him to. He can count one hand the amount of times Johnny has spoken to him of his own accord and without Dallas having to drag out every word.

So Dallas said nothing. He stayed silent, letting Johnny shake and clutch at the sheets on the bed, letting him eventually curl close to him, shaking against him. The window was open and he could hear the music from some distant party a block or two away. It sounded like Elvis or maybe The Beatles. Or maybe that was just the music from downstairs. Buck’s place is far from the rest of the town, far enough that if they could hear someone else’s music the cops would probably be called on whoever it was for being too loud.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts, he wasn’t ready for it when he felt Johnny’s lips against his neck, whisper soft and so much more intimate, so much more comforting than any other girl’s lips. Even Sylvia’s. For a moment, he forgot everything and he closed his eyes, his lips parting slightly as he did so, a voice in his mind thinking, _This is what I want_.

Then he snapped back into himself. All at once.

Suddenly it wasn’t Johnny kissing him it was someone from jail and he let out a gasp, screaming, “Johnny, what the fuck was that?!” His face twisted in shock and anger, though he couldn’t quite decide if he was angry at Johnny for doing it or himself for letting it happen.

There was a wet spot on his neck and he could still feel it even after he opened his eyes and found Johnny was on the floor.

He didn’t want it to ever go away.

He swallowed hard, looking at Johnny again. All of his anger drained from him as he saw the blood on his lip, saw he was shaking again, worse than before, one hand touching at the blood at the same time his tongue did.

“Oh shit, Johnny,” he said in a quiet voice, realizing what must’ve happened. “Shit I didn’t mean to, Johnnycake, I swear.”

He must have hit him. From the way Johnny was looking at him, he knew that was the truth.

The urge to leave, steal some booze, and get in a fight was stronger than ever.

But he couldn’t leave Johnny. He couldn’t leave him here to potentially run out of the bar only to be assaulted by the perverts standing outside. Vaguely, Dallas wondered how far he himself would get before Darry found him and killed him for what he’d just done. And for a moment, he thought that was what was going to happen anyway. Johnny looked like a startled animal, ready to run at the slightest movement. He wondered if he could run faster than him, catch him before he got outside, catch him before one of the dirty old men standing around the bar’s entrance did.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny gasped out finally, not looking at Dallas as he spoke.

Dally hated himself more than he ever had in that moment.

“What was that?” he asked, his voice just as quiet.

Johnny didn’t reply. Dallas didn’t get an answer to that question either.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t meant to hit ya, okay?”

Johnny still said nothing, still looked everywhere except at Dallas.

“You can come back on the bed,” he said, hating his pleading tone. “I ain’t gonna hit’cha again.”

This time Johnny did look at him. He stared at him for a long time before he finally moved, never taking his eyes off Dallas and lying down again on the very edge of the bed, his arms covering his scarred chest. He lay so far from Dallas that he had to stretch his arm all the way out to take his hand in his own.

A part of him wondered if he’d just ruined everything between them, wondered if Johnny would ever trust him again. He wondered if any of the gang ever would again either.

“Why’d you do that, Johnnycake?”he asked, his voice still quiet, not wanting to scare Johnny away, wanting him to know he hadn’t meant what happened.

Johnny’s eyes flicked away from Dally’s face to the space between them. He stared at it for a long, long time, saying nothing and for a long, long time, Dallas thought he wasn’t going to get an answer to that question either. Then, finally, his voice barely more than a whisper, Johnny said, his eyes going back to Dally’s face, “You really don’t know?”

Dallas drew his brows together.

What did he mean by that?

Then he thought of the way Johnny had snuggled next to him only moments ago, the way Johnny only ever came to him anymore when his folks or the Socs or someone in between hurt him. He thought about how Johnny only smiled really wide around him, how he only spoke to him willingly, even if Dallas did have to drag the words out of him more often than not. He thought about the way Johnny looked at him, like he was a flower and Dally was the sun keeping him alive.

He thought about how it couldn’t possibly be true.

How it was too good to be true.

How he’d always thought, even if Johnny were gay, it would be Soda or Ponyboy he’d love, not a broken, damaged hood like Dallas.

And this time, when Johnny pulled himself closer, like nothing had ever happened, he let Johnny kiss him. He closed his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh as he felt Johnny’s lips connect with his own, wondering if he were dreaming, wondering when he would wake up and all of this never would’ve ever happened and he’d be alone and desperate to forget again.

But that didn’t happen. Johnny just kissed him harder, opening his mouth, pressing his tongue against Dally’s lips until Dally opened his mouth too and kissed him back just as hard.

He didn’t think about jail this time.

He didn’t think about anything except Johnny.

He didn’t have to. Every other time he’d kissed someone, he’d imagined it was Johnny. It was surreal that he didn’t have to do that anymore.

When Johnny finally pulled away, slumping against Dally’s chest, Dally’s self hatred came back, breaking through the pure love and hope he felt to remind himself of what he had done a moment before. And he wished Johnny would not trust him so much. He didn’t deserve to be loved by someone as pure, someone as _good_ as Johnny Cade.

 _But he loves you,_ a voice reminded him. _He always has._

Dallas wasn’t sure the voice was right. Maybe Johnny just wanted company, was just touch-starved and as desperate for love as Dallas was.

Maybe this meant nothing.

But deep down, he knew that wasn’t true.

And the thought made him want to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> as always if the author sees this and wants me to take it down i will. i just rly loved their writin' style and whatnot and wanted to try my hand and writin' it in my own style!!


End file.
